


Life Is A Dream

by orphan_account



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/F, F/M, Family Feels, Gen, M/M, Multi, Other, Rape/Non-con Elements, each chapter will have a warning as needed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-22
Updated: 2017-12-22
Packaged: 2019-02-18 09:29:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13097232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Catherine and Tony want to welcome home a family member with some trouble. Sounds easy: a new job, a lot of money. But no, romance and hard feelings bring harder feeling and murder.





	Life Is A Dream

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Gracie_Forth](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Gracie_Forth).



> Notes for warnings at every chapter. Heed them. Not kidding. Even the joint author of this doesn't read all of it. Knifeplay. Spiders. Jeepers, don't do this to people! There is death! Major spoilers! Not to mention violence and rape. Some graphic, some not. Chapters will warn you, for fuck's sake heed the damn warnings. I am not, nor is Marvel, in any way responsible for your damage.

Steve didn't expect Catherine Stark to become Bucky's first friend, he had no idea how the two of them even had come to be introduced. Sam must have helped. Steve recalled the day, much like he did everything, with exacting clarity. Bucky's voice was raised and Steve had rushed to the rescue of whomever it was directed at. The scene wasn't what he anticipated.

Bucky loomed over the small blonde woman with a finger directed at her chest. She argued right back with a finger pointed straight at Bucky's nose. It took him a moment to catch up that this wasn't one of Bucky's little sisters. Monopoly. They were arguing over Monopoly. He was accusing her of cheating because she didn't put money out for the free parking space. Her argument was that it wasn't in the rules. It was so normal, so endearing, he'd laughed out loud earning glares from both of them. Later that night they had grumped together about his outburst. Something had both stirred and quieted in his chest that night. He knew what it was he just didn't want to put a name to it.

Now, for reasons he didn't want to admit, he stood beside Tony and his adopted baby sister to greet their cousin as she stepped off the private plane and onto the tarmac. Bucky had come along more out of curiosity, having heard stories of Kit's shared childhood with Izzie. Kit had a terrible habit of nicknaming people. Izzie was short for Elizabeth and, according to Tony, she no longer went by that. In fact, her family had done their level best to disassociate with the Stark name. 

The blonde and the brunet raised their hands in tandem to shield their eyes as the jet landed and wave to the off-boarding passenger, a habit that amused Steve as Tony was perpetually reminding everyone 'she's adopted'. Where he could see it in Thor's case, he couldn't understand when it came to Kit. She was just too..., a cleared throat from Bucky drew him back from those thoughts. Together they watched the happy family reunion.

"Cuz! Long time no see," Tony smiled as he took her in his arms. "You remember the nagging little shit that used to fill up your summers? Kit," he gestured for his sister to come forward.

"Izzie!" The smaller woman wrapped an arm around the redhead.

"There's much to get you caught up on, clearly," Tony intoned dryly. Much was an understatement, especially in this case. Tony was Iron Man, clearly worked for -with- the Avengers, and she was moving from New Hampshire to New York City. He expected the move to be jarring. "Sis found you a house. You need to meet the fellas!" Tony started walking to his car.

"I hope you like the house," Kit supplied stepping forward with keys, "Don't want you to feel trapped with us, so we gave you a ride. You should follow me back to your new place."

It was overwhelming, both of them. They had no idea what she'd been through. How could they step in and just micro-manage her life like that? Not that she wasn't grateful for the rescue, but this was too much. Both of them, the plane, all of the proposed company. She would have liked a moment or twenty to just calm her nerves after the flight.

Bucky knew precisely how she felt without saying a word. He watched the voluptuous figure of the Stark cousin disappear into her new car, buckling himself in beside his friend. "Stark girls," he groused in thought.

"Yeah, Stark girls," Steve agreed for other reasons.

 

Dinner and therefore the team was to meet at her house. Her, meaning Iz, or Bette. Whatever, until Steve was actually introduced to her it wouldn't matter. He showed up with wine, the bare minimum to a Stark engagement but he had been told it was no big deal. Blatant lies as far as he was concerned, everything involving a Stark made papers.

Catherine hosts a charity benefit.  
Tony host a gala.  
Catherine to open a hospital wing.  
Tony was seen with someone other than Pepper Potts.  
Catherine saw with no one.  
Tony, Tony, Tony...  
Catherine, Catherine, Catherine...  
The fact that Kit was never seen with anyone and it made him happy was no one's business but his own.

 

When he went to speak to the girl in question: she stuttered, blushed and ran. Every time. He could listen to her mission descriptions, her maps drawn over precise lines. Catch her in an elevator and she was as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. Bucky was no help.

"Just talk to her,"Bucky advised with a knowing smile.

"I can't, she runs," Steve answered ruefully.

Bucky hummed and watched the numbers tick away the floors. Steve had grown impatient waiting, pulling at loose threads on his uniform and scratching: why the fuck was his suit suddenly so itchy?

His lover laughed at him, " You like her."

He tried to dismiss it with a shake of his head and realized it was a lie. Stoic, he looked at his lover's face. "Dude, I get it," Bucky smiled back. He'd seen this coming even when Steve hadn't. "She's you! All rules and regulation. You should spend some time with her. Get to see how she's just like you with a twinge of Howard. Do ya good ta live a little!" The smirk on Bucky's face made his stomach flip, but anytime he smelled her perfume, he avoided that hall for a week.

When he came out of the ice and Fury brought him here the first thing he remembered was a whiff of vanilla, cinnamon and a hint of something on the elevator ride. A commotion had been made about the director's arrival but that scent had drawn him down the hall. It wasn't warm, it wasn't comfort, it wasn't heated and made him feel hot and safe just the same. He tried to put a name to it as it drew him closer. Safe, but dangerous. Hot, but not warm. This left a burning, an ache inside him. Like Bucky had.

Like Bucky always would.

That's how they met. Clear, grey eyes too big for her face at first glance. She passed him a tissue and gave him space to miss James Barnes. He wouldn't catch it until years later. She was as invested in the search for Barnes as he was. By then it wouldn't matter. The Stark sister had done her most damned to disappear. Steve still treasured the moments her caught her perfume in the elevator.

Never in his life would he get over those eyes. For that brief moment, they saw each other as no one else had seen or understood them before. Sickly kids that got better and were determined to do the same for others. It didn't draw them closer. Rather the opposite, it made them avoid each other, Tony being the initial roadblock. Followed by the Accords. She worked for Fury, liaison to the company she all but owned. The family came first. That is what her father said. He may haven't impressed it on Tony but he did impress it on her.

Whatever Catherine Stark did was in the best interests of her family. Hence the meeting on the tarmac today. Elizabeth had withdrawn from her family because of a man. A man who had so influenced their daughter she had ceased calling her parents. So she purchased her cousin a house and gave her a temp job as an excuse to stay. The truth of the matter was Kit had a few matters of her own that she'd neglected and needed someone to help with Pepper's art gallery. Fury wouldn't spare Rogers, thank God!

He remembered her soft flush of cheek in the hall when she'd asked if he'd come. He knew she didn't mean to ask, it was a default setting of polite nature, but she had anyway. Now here he was with Bucky mocking him. Steve tried to quietly ignore him but Buck knew him better than most," Jesus, Steve! I'd think you were...Oh, you fucking are!"

"Language," Steve chided as he drove.

"You've replaced me," Buck teased.

"No, I haven't," Steve answered. "She's just... an unknown variable."

"Unknown variable my ass! You like her!" Bucky was actually happy about this and Steve didn't know why.

"I thought it was just Peggy. No, Steve, this is good! It means you're moving forward! Getting on with your life." Bucky sounded happy with a relationship development outside himself. While it made him happy it also made him worry.

Steve wished he wasn't himself so happy with the prospect of it. Some semblance of unhappiness was becoming and he couldn't fake it. Buck knew, he knew that the scent Steve had chased down the hall was his flavor of the minute and it wasn't him. It was fine. They had a lifetime and more to indulge in what they'd missed. That now accepted what they had was enough.

He watched Izzie Stark get off the plane and his mind whispered, 'Holy hell!' as he watched her walk down the stairs. Her curves, her hair, that face! His heart found his stomach in no time flat. He couldn't mock Steve anymore. Fucking Stark girls.


End file.
